


just making sure you're real

by Roehrborn



Series: Canon Compliant Nygmobblepot [2]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: 3x19, Angst, Bitterness, Delusions of Grandeur!Ed, Denial, Inappropriate Erections, Love, M/M, Murderous Thougths, No Sex, Sarcasm, the worst case of denial you've ever seen, you cannot have one without the other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-03 23:57:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10978080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roehrborn/pseuds/Roehrborn
Summary: Chapter One: It’s anger that he’s feeling, right?  Anger making his heart race and his blood boil.  Oswald isrealand he’shere, and the Riddler feels more alive than he’s felt in months.~Chapter Two: It figures Ed would try to go for the throat.  Too bad for him he’s missed it by a mile.  Because Oswald can put two and two together, unlikesomepeople: killing OswaldchangedEd.





	1. just making sure you're real

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Просто чтобы убедиться, что ты реален](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11467332) by [Red_evil_twist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red_evil_twist/pseuds/Red_evil_twist)



> **F U C K .**
> 
>  
> 
> I like hate!ships just about as much as I love best friend!ships and anyway… here’s this mess. I tried to reconcile Ed’s arc about how he definitely fucking misses Oswald with his immediate “death to Oswald!” in 3x19 and ended up with “Ed is the least emotionally aware person in the history of the world, ever”.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy.  
> ~R

**I**

“Just making sure you’re real,” the Riddler mutters, eyes narrowed in calculation.

Oswald stares at him, face affronted, nose wrinkled. It’s a familiar expression, comically out of place after so much has passed between them. Murders and … resurrections.

It’s anger that he’s feeling, right? Anger making his heart race and his blood boil. “You are _difficult_ to kill. More cockroach than penguin.” He can feel his pulse in his throat. “But _don’t you dare_ call me ‘Ed’. I’m…” he savors the moment of reveal, tasting the appellation on his tongue, “... _the Riddler_. And I became him when I killed you.” His heart leaps violently at the thought; at the memory of his moment of ascension, of _understanding_.

But Oswald doesn’t seem to realize it; doesn’t understand that the Riddler is more than just a man. He sneers at the Riddler, and says in his most condescending, humorously biting voice: “Newsflash, _Ed_ , I’m! Not! Dead!”

The Riddler chuckles,choosing to see the humor of the situation. Of course Oswald doesn’t believe him. Not _yet_. He hasn’t seen the Riddler in action. “It’s true,” he agrees easily. Oswald is indeed alive. Oswald is _real_ and he’s _here_ , and the Riddler is feeling more than he’s felt in months. “For now.”

  


**II**

There's a sense of familiarity, completeness, as Edward - ah, how silly of him, he's forgotten his own new name, must be the stress of the situation - _the Riddler_ holds his hand out for Oswald to shake.

Oswald’s hand in his is bony, sinewy in a way that it wasn’t before. He’s always had thin wrists and hands with protruding metacarpals, but when he’d been coiffed and well-appointed they’d seemed aristocratic. Now they feel fragile, breakable, like they had when they’d first met. The Riddler sneers - it seems his near-death has taken some toll after all.

“Deal,” Oswald says, drawing the Riddler’s attention back to his face.

And _that_ expression, that look of gleeful threat and delight in Oswald’s eyes, is one he knows _very_ well. Excitement stirs in his veins, an automatic sort of response. It can't be helped, the Riddler supposes, not when he's so used to working with Oswald. His body knows what it means when Oswald wears that look.

“I think we both know how this needs to go,” the Riddler says, and Oswald scowls, but doesn’t argue.

  


**III**

Uh oh - _that_ certainly shouldn't be happening. Well, the Riddler supposes, it's the thought of killing Oswald once and for all that has him so aroused. They're basically play-acting Oswald’s inevitable defeat at his hands, so it goes to figure that the Riddler should be hard.

His left hand grasps at the loose-fitting front of Oswald’s jumpsuit, feeling the firm musculature underneath. He shouldn’t be surprised - Oswald has always been stronger than he seems, faster, far more _physically_ dangerous than most assume. He can feel Oswald’s heart racing in his chest and wonders if he, too, is realizing that this is how it will all end. Oswald’s ribcage expands and contracts under the Riddler’s hand.

The Riddler’s other hand holds the knife aloft, and he huffs in irritation as Oswald struggles with the jello in his hand. The Riddler supposes he’s grateful that Oswald is too distracted to realize his arousal - that could lead to some _awkward_ lines of questioning that really aren’t fit for this damp little prison.

Or ever, really. Oswald has already made it quite clear that he no longer cares about the Riddler’s rejection - well, to be perfectly accurate, the Riddler had never rejected him at all, but made his feelings quite clear all the same - so there really is no need to imagine they’ll ever have a discussion at any point about the Riddler’s arousal (or lack thereof, though there’s no need to consider that since, to be frank, the _arousal is there_ ) at life-threatening situations or the occasional bout of serenading….

“Ed!” Oswald hisses, voice scathing, “Am I interrupting your nap?!”

The Riddler bares his teeth but doesn’t bother to complain about the name; he’s realized now that Oswald is determined to ignore his new title. “Are you sure you’re ready, or do you want to practice your juggling a little more?”

“ _Ready_ ,” Oswald growls, voice dangerously low.

The Riddler smirks, moving the knife into place. With his wrist so close to Oswald’s neck, he can feel stress sweat on Oswald’s pallid throat and the thrumming of his heart beneath the delicate surface of his skin. His neck _is_ surprisingly smooth for a man’s, the Riddler considers.

“Help!” Oswald bays, voice convincingly frantic, and Ed’s hand trembles against the man with desire. Or--

The Riddler’s hand, that is. With bloodlust.

  


**IV**

The Riddler can aim a gun at point-blank range, and when he shoots the dart, it hits the guard, steady and true. His eyes shoot over to Oswald; the Riddler can’t help him from here, so he’d better have it handled on his own--

 _Oh_ , he _does_.

He standing behind the other guard, gripping him like the Riddler held Oswald earlier, but when Oswald yanks the knife across the throat, it strikes true.

Oswald’s teeth are bared in a feral grimace, any noise he makes covered by the guard’s guttural scream. Blood gushes out of the man’s neck - Oswald hit the carotid artery, killing the man nearly instantly. The Riddler’s eyes follow the man as he collapses to the floor, an appreciative grin of his own on his face.

He is pleased and impressed despite himself, and a helpless chuckle escapes him as Oswald approaches with the key. The fingernails of his hand are stained a little with blood, and the Riddler thinks, gleefully, that _this_ is how the Penguin should look.

The Riddler can’t remember the last time he saw Oswald like this - wild, like an _animal_ , like a predator intent on its kill.

  


**V**

The Riddler laughs down at Oswald; Oswald, covered in streaks of blood and eyes flat and colorless like marbles, Oswald, who’s beginning to smile, and the Riddler is never sure if that is a good sign or a bad one.

“Actually,” Oswald says, in that familiar husky tone, and the Riddler quietens, waiting to hear his response with anticipation curling in his gut. “I have an army of Hugo Strange’s monsters at my command,” Oswald tells him, nodding along with the words. He’s looking too smug, too self-assured, the Riddler thinks, smile fading to an echo. Oswald is telling the truth.

“But,” Oswald says, the smile gone from his face, eyes focused unerringly as the Riddler stares uncertainly at him, “even if I were alone, you wouldn’t stand a chance.”

 _There_ is the fire, the _competition_ he’s been missing. _There_ is the bloodlust that neither Jim Gordon nor Lucius Fox could hope to match. _There_ is that burning hunger, that focused attention.

Oh yes, he had known it back then. The Riddler _needs an enemy_.

“I suppose we’ll see,” he tells his foil, voice deep and pleased.

“I suppose so,” the Penguin agrees, voice soft with wrath.

The Riddler takes a step back, and so does the Penguin, and they turn their backs and they’re walking away, footsteps loud in the potholed alleyway.

And if the Riddler glances back --

\--the Penguin looks right back at him, anyway.

  


**FIN**


	2. hold fast to the wing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to post this as a separate fic but then I realized... why?
> 
> Anyway, some of Oswald's thoughts from 3x19. :) Enjoy!  
> ~R

**I**

“I’m the Riddler. And I became him after I killed you.” Ed tells him, face lined with smug superiority. He’s actually _proud_ of it; _proud_ of the name, _proud_ of the new identity, donning it like that painfully unsubtle leprechaun suit of his.

Oswald feels a laugh bubbling up inside him, the hysteric edge comforting in its familiarity. For a moment, he had doubted that the rage in his heart would be enough to overpower the lingering hurt and adoration. But surely he can kill _this_ man, this vitriolic stranger.

“Newsflash, Ed!” Oswald exclaims, the uncontrollable grin giving his words an incongruous lilt. “I’m! Not! Dead!”

Ed smiles back at him, his secretly-pleased smile, a look that had always excited Oswald: what did his chief of staff have up his sleeve?

Now, it makes him nauseous. He remembers that look all too well from Ed’s scheming against him. It was the same look he had worn as he dismantled Oswald’s empire, piece by painstaking piece, handing it over to that _traitor_ Barbara Kean. If Edward had stolen it for _himself_ , Oswald would have understood: but to hand it over to _Barbara_? It is an insult to every drop of blood Oswald had spilled for it; his own, and others’.

“It’s true,” Ed agrees, eyes closing mock-bashfully. Then they open wide, staring into Oswald’s own with simmering, burning flame. “For now,” he says darkly, a sharp little grin edging at his lips.

Oswald ignores the pang in his chest: he _hates_ this man, he really does--

\--or he _wants_ to, anyway.

 

**II**

“Because I didn’t love you _back_?” Ed says, voice intentionally cruel and cutting.

Oswald smiles ruefully to himself, tilting his head down to look at the cement floor of the cage. It figures Ed would try to go for the throat. Too bad for him he’s missed it by a mile.

Because Oswald can put two and two together, unlike _some_ people.

He’d told Ed the truth, out there on the docks: that it would be the cold-blooded murder of someone he loves. Oswald hadn’t known it for certain then, but it’s all too apparent now: Ed is _changed_ , in a way he wasn’t affected by his girlfriend’s death. Either of them. He’s renounced his old name and his old identity, peacocking around with that smug grin and laugh, endangering himself unduly in his treasure hunt for “the truth”.

Killing Oswald _changed_ him.

Irrevocably.

And if _Edward_ is still too blind to see that, nothing Oswald says is going to change his mind.

 

**III**

The dart strikes him in the throat.

He hates that Ed knows him this well, can manipulate him that effectively. But Ed hasn’t yet learned to account for Oswald’s unending tenacity. He will.

The world is going fuzzy at the edges, the tranquilizer already suppressing his vision and speech. His muscles go weak underneath him, tongue feeling heavy and unruly in his mouth.

As he collapses, he reaches out with one desperate arm to knock down the meal tray, and it falls to the floor with a clatter. His only chance to alert the guards. With an unsteady arm, he slams the tray against the cement floor, a loud _clang_ rattling up through his arm, sending numbness tingling through the limb. He grits his teeth and ignores the feeling.

“ _Stop it_ ,” Ed hisses, like a child, as Oswald continues banging the tray against the floor with all the strength he has left. Oswald ignores him, determinedly, petulantly, and his efforts pay off in the most delicious of ways.

“No, you don’t understand--” Ed tells the guards, face startled and gormless. Oswald’s not sure he’s ever seen Ed so caught off guard, and it’s with a vicious smirk that he watches as the guards knock him to the ground.

Oswald fades from consciousness slowly, eyes trained on the sight of Ed being summarily beaten, curled in the fetal position on the floor. There’s a small part of him, a purely reactive part, which stirs in unease; but forcefully Oswald reminds himself of the way Ed had treated him over those hellish few days.

Oswald closes his eyes and hardens his heart.

 

**IV**

It shouldn’t feel so secure, to have Ed’s arms around him.

The last time he touched Ed, Ed had been about to _murder_ him, face cruel and heartless and lined with raindrops like tears.

Oswald tries to remember their last embrace but his mind stutters, shying away from those moments, the heart-wrenching love and adoration they’d shared. _Shared_. Even if Ed’s had been solely platonic. Even if his infatuation with a woman had been enough to drive him away--

\--Very well, Oswald can admit that’s _simplifying_ it a bit.

But Ed’s body will always feel familiar to him. Barring his parents, he’s never touched another human so much before, and he’s memorized the lanky strength of his arms, the relative narrowness of his shoulders and chest, the shape of his hands. Oswald feels the damp warmth of Ed’s left hand pressed to his stomach, right above the scar from the gunshot that had almost killed him. Oswald determinedly ignores it, reassuring himself that Ed can’t possibly remember exactly where the bullet had penetrated him.

Ed takes a breath, his chest expanding in a way that Oswald can feel, viscerally, against his back. His breath falters, and with concentration he forces himself to exhale mostly steadily, ignoring the twinge in his gut.

Then Ed lifts his right arm to hold the knife to his throat.

Oswald’s heart beats wildly, frantically in his chest.

He’s not even sure anymore if it’s excitement or fear. It’s _Ed_ , anyway, his usual clean smell undercut by musk and sweat, his breaths rustling the hairs on top of Oswald’s head, his hand cold and clammy against Oswald’s exposed neck.

_Showtime_ , Oswald ushers himself, and opens his mouth to begin screaming.

 

**V**

“I suppose so,” Oswald tells Ed.

Ed takes a step back, that strange grin etched onto his face. Oswald mirrors him, as steadily as he can on his bad leg. A step, and another, and they both turn on their heels. They’ll see each other again. Probably in five hours.

Ed’s not done with him, and he’s not done with Ed.

Oswald has no intention of dying (again), but part of him hopes Ed will pose a serious threat. To watch him go up in flames, or frozen solid, or mind-controlled into killing himself, won’t carry the emotional catharsis Oswald is still waiting for.

To that end, he’s not sure what _will_ resolve these torn-up feelings of love and hate.

Not unless Ed _realizes_.

That they are meant for each other, in love or in hate.

Oswald glances behind him, eyes tracing the long silhouette of his former friend, twisted with bitterness and longing.

And Ed looks back.

 

**FIN.**


End file.
